Confirmation of out-of-State Arbitration Awards under Maryland\u27s Uniform Arbitration Act

This Article examines the difficulties inherent in the confirmation of out-of-state arbitration awards under the Maryland Uniform Arbitration Act. The author recommends that either the General Assembly amend the Act to provide expressly for such confirmations in Maryland courts, or the courts, in the absence of such legislation, nevertheless should allow confirmation of such awards

A Roadmap through Malice, Actual or Implied: Punitive Damages in Torts Arising out of Contract in Maryland

The distinction between tort and tort arising out of contract is becoming blurred where awards of punitive damages are sought. The article analyzes torts arising out of contract and the present approach of the Maryland courts to malice, the key element governing the recovery of punitive damages. The author suggests that the conduct, and not the technical term of the wrongful act, should dictate whether a plaintiff may recover punitive damages

Confirmation of out-of-State Arbitration Awards under Maryland\u27s Uniform Arbitration Act

This Article examines the difficulties inherent in the confirmation of out-of-state arbitration awards under the Maryland Uniform Arbitration Act. The author recommends that either the General Assembly amend the Act to provide expressly for such confirmations in Maryland courts, or the courts, in the absence of such legislation, nevertheless should allow confirmation of such awards

Hosts of hydrogen in Allan Hills 84001: Evidence for hydrous martian salts in the oldest martian meteorite?

The martian meteorite, Allan Hills (ALH) 84001, contains D-rich hydrogen of plausible martian origin (Leshin et al., 1996). The phase identity of the host(s) of this hydrogen are not well known and could include organic matter (McKay et al., 1996), phlogopite (Brearley, 2000), glass (Mittlefehldt, 1994) and/or other unidentified components of this rock. Previous ion microprobe studies indicate that much of the hydrogen in ALH 84001 as texturally associated with concretions of nominally anhydrous carbonates, glass and oxides (Boctor et al., 1998; Sugiura and Hoshino, 2000). We examined the physical and chemical properties of the host(s) of this hydrogen by stepped pyrolysis of variously pre-treated subsamples. A continuous-flow method of water reduction and mass spectrometry (Eiler and Kitchen, 2001) was used to permit detailed study of the small amounts of this hydrogen-poor sample available for study. We find that the host(s) of D-rich hydrogen released from ALH 84001 at relatively low temperatures (~500 °C) is soluble in orthophosphoric and dilute hydrochloric acids and undergoes near-complete isotopic exchange with water within hours at temperatures of 200 to 300 °C. These characteristics are most consistent with the carrier phase(s) being a hydrous salt (e.g., carbonate, sulfate or halide); the thermal stability of this material is inconsistent with many examples of such minerals (e.g., gypsum) and instead suggests one or more relatively refractory hydrous carbonates (e.g., hydromagnesite). Hydrous salts (particularly hydrous carbonates) are common on the Earth only in evaporite, sabkha, and hydrocryogenic-weathering environments; we suggest that much (if not all) of the “martian” hydrogen in ALH 84001 was introduced in analogous environments on or near the martian surface rather than through biological activity or hydrothermal alteration of silicates in the crust

Length, Protein-Protein Interactions, and Complexity

The evolutionary reason for the increase in gene length from archaea to prokaryotes to eukaryotes observed in large scale genome sequencing efforts has been unclear. We propose here that the increasing complexity of protein-protein interactions has driven the selection of longer proteins, as longer proteins are more able to distinguish among a larger number of distinct interactions due to their greater average surface area. Annotated protein sequences available from the SWISS-PROT database were analyzed for thirteen eukaryotes, eight bacteria, and two archaea species. The number of subcellular locations to which each protein is associated is used as a measure of the number of interactions to which a protein participates. Two databases of yeast protein-protein interactions were used as another measure of the number of interactions to which each \emph{S. cerevisiae} protein participates. Protein length is shown to correlate with both number of subcellular locations to which a protein is associated and number of interactions as measured by yeast two-hybrid experiments. Protein length is also shown to correlate with the probability that the protein is encoded by an essential gene. Interestingly, average protein length and number of subcellular locations are not significantly different between all human proteins and protein targets of known, marketed drugs. Increased protein length appears to be a significant mechanism by which the increasing complexity of protein-protein interaction networks is accommodated within the natural evolution of species. Consideration of protein length may be a valuable tool in drug design, one that predicts different strategies for inhibiting interactions in aberrant and normal pathways.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, to appear in Physica

Cancer Molecular Analysis Project: Weaving a rich cancer research tapestry

AbstractThe Cancer Molecular Analysis Project (CMAP) of the NCI is integrating diverse cancer research data to elucidate fundamental etiologic processes, enable development of novel therapeutic approaches, and facilitate the bridging of basic and clinical science